Support for Vet Bills After Tragic Loss of Beloved Pets

Earlier this year I thought I was getting a fresh start. What I got was a nightmare. I found a basement apartment where I would get to have my three pets. I had been living in an RV for the past five months following my divorce from my husband of nine years. I’d owned my homes in the past and never had trouble with my pit bull Cortana, but rentals were a different story, since most of them have breed restrictions and I was having trouble finding someplace I could have her. The basement apartment I found was through my coworker, he explained his girlfriend had a place to rent and she wanted to get a tenant in there because she was evicting a horrible tenant in the upstairs apartment.

The week I moved in my first dog, Master Chief, was hospitalized and my second dog, Cortana, got sick. Chief passed two and a half days after he was hospitalized and Cortana passed 10 days later. Then my ex-husband asked if I wanted to watch his cat, Leonidas, the only pet he kept in the divorce. He was going out of town and I was ecstatic to spend a week with him. The day before I was to bring him home I woke up around 5 am to check on the cats and found him dead. After I got back from the vet I found my cat, Spartacus, was sick.

A few weeks later passed and my boyfriend and new roommate told me they didn’t think the place had hot water. I’ve been blessed through my job to love overseas and travel to many places and the water temperature at hotels has always varied and been just fine. Additionally, the blue flashing light indicated to me the water heater was functioning just fine. So I thought that the smell and temperature were just how the house was. Plus I often shower at work and was out of the house a lot for work, so I hadn’t given it any thought. I contacted my landlord though and she came out and told my roommate that she had put the water heater on vacation mode to make things uncomfortable for the person upstairs she was evicting.

The water heater had been at the perfect temperature to grow bacteria and produced so much it was making us sick. Additionally, it was producing hydrogen sulfide gas, which is toxic to humans and pets, and the perfect lethal environment in a basement apartment with little ventilation. The landlord only added bleach to the water heater after I brought it to her attention, but unfortunately, the situation was so bad it was only a bandaid and the situation returned a few weeks later to claim the life of my remaining pet, Spartacus.

The landlord maintains she did nothing wrong and sued me for breaking my lease. There’s so much more to my 60 Minutes-style saga and I’m happy to answer questions you may have, but this is getting pretty long. I am asking for the amount I paid in vet bills for the four pets I lost only. Anything you can donate is greatly appreciated and if you cannot do that sharing this is also very helpful!

About my sweet babies. Master Chief was the first one rescued. He was so full of life. He loved swimming to the extent it was hard to get him out of the water sometimes. He was also my hiking buddy. My little tan man had such an expressive face you could tell what was on his mind.

I felt Master Chief needed a buddy, so Cortana was added to the family. Cortana had the biggest heart, and was the most patient, and loving dog. Everyone loved her and I had several people offer to take her throughout the time I owned her. She was the opposite of Master Chief and you couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She had a stoic constitution and you wouldn’t know if she was in pain. She was also very stubborn but it was a quality I loved about her.

I had always been a cat person so Spartacus was added to round out the family. He had a dog-like personality and would come when you called him. I’d tell him time to go to bed and he’d run up the stairs. He slept by my side at night, I was his person. He was also very soft-spoken and would meow but sometimes no sound would come out or I could barely hear him. He never got into my food or begged unless I had beef or chicken.

I thought Spartacus was lonely and needed another cat because well that would be different than the dogs. So Leonidas was adopted. He was loud and let you know when he was upset. He had a primordial pouch that would sway back and forth and looked like something in a cartoon. He was so playful and thought biting was a form of affection . His fur was so soft and he hated snuggles at first, but after much coercion and forced loves he grew to need them and would yell at you when he required more. He was a monster for tuna sashimi and would stretch out trying to get it off the counter.

I was so blessed to have all four of these animals in my life and I miss them dearly. Thank you for reading my story and I hope you never have to deal with human beings that have a disregard for life or the betrayal that comes from trusting the wrong person. If you do or have, just know there’s light at the end of the tunnel.